SouleMama

a sign of things to come

So. I was sewing merrily along, minding my own business, and suddenly a piece of the sewing machine flew off and hit me in the head! Surely that's a sign. But a sign of what, I ask. A sign that I should stop sewing and go to bed? Perhaps. A sign that I should get my machine repaired or even serviced? Naah. A sign that I need a new machine? Ding Ding Ding!  Exactly! That's it!

No really, she's been a dear, and I'm quite grateful for all she's done. But the poor girl is toasted, man. Overworked. And seriously underpaid. No one could have expected her to last this long. She's worked through sails, paper, and let's face it, HUNDREDS of handbags. It's time to think about our goodbyes. And most importantly, it's time to say hello. To this. Or this. Or this. (Do I have any idea what I'm talking about? No. But there's plenty of time ahead for research. Plenty.) 

So in the interest of taking some wee baby steps towards a new 'hello', and in humbly taking the advice and requests of many of you this week (thank you, thank you), I'll be opening shop again next week. I have no expectation to make it a regular thing (last time I promised monthly updates was six months ago!), so let's consider it a virtual trunk show, shall we? Oh yes, I like that. A virtual trunk show. After the holiday weekend, next Wednesday morning, 10ish.

But if, in the meantime, I get hit with another piece of machinery, all promises are off, okay? Okay. I'm off to don my protective eyewear and get sewing. I'm sure the boys have some goggles I could borrow.

Corners of My Home

I love it when something long forgotten is 'found,' (as is quite evident in my fabric collection), and finds a new use.This tub is the latest to be rescued from near disappearance. I don't remember where I found it originally--a yard sale, I'm sure, years ago. Not knowing quite what to do with it, It's been sitting in the never-land regions of our back porch until this just week, when wishing I had a baby-sized pool for Adelaide, I suddenly remembered it. I can't think of a better 'use' for it than this. After an oh-so-brief (seconds, I assure you) moment of not being so sure, she settled right in and loved it for most of an afternoon. It sat next to the 'bigger' kiddie pool, and as she watched her brothers splashing about, she mimicked the same in her own tub--but from a much safer spot all her own.

They hardly needed to show her how to eat watermelon. She figured that one out by herself.

More Corners of My Home on Flickr.

a few more

Can you handle just a few more show-and-tell handbags? This is the rest of the basketful (oh yes, I brought my basket again) that went to the shop. The above four are the "curtain bag' style that I've been making a few of lately.  I really like the size (or atleast, it's been a perfect size for me, sans children), and pleats are too fun to make (but I will restrain myself to keeping them on bags, not clothes. No worries.), but most of all I love making these bags because I don't use interfacing on them. I do not like interfacing, especially applying interfacing in the summer. Ick. So, They're sort of floppyish, and I think that works for them.

And these four were what you saw 'in progress' last Friday. Randomly sized, and pieced, and sewn into a 'bucket' sort of shape. The yellow-y second one in from the right was slightly hard to let go of. So very 'summer'. And it matches my skirt. For that matter, they all match 'something,' which is the beauty of making these bags for me--thinking about where each piece came from, what it's already been used for, and then thinking about where it might be headed.

I promise there will be no handbags in tomorrow's post. Baby toes, perhaps. But no handbags.

inspired by circles

Having been quite inspired by circles of late, I came up with these handbags last week. I used very sturdy cotton canvas (the one that's nearly busting my sewing machine each time I use it), so they're a nice, heavy weight that I like in a bag. The back, by the way, is just one circle in the center.

These four were just handed off to be sold at Edith & Edna. But I think I'll be making these again, they were so fun. As if I needed more of a reason to save and love my scraps, well, these provided it.

shirts and skirts

So, imagine 12 incredibly creative and lovely women and girls in one shop basement together, playing with freezer paper stencils together for three hours. Yup, you got it. It was fun. I was so in love with all the stencils that were made and how creatively they were used. I did manage to get one stencil of my own done (on Ez, above). I love that photo of him wearing it, caught mid-laugh by the camera. So fun. Thanks to all who came, and especially to Brandie at Edith & Edna for hosting. And no worries for those who couldn't make it this weekend, I think we'll be doing it again this fall, and I'll be sure to post about it when it happens.

At about midnight on Friday night I decided I needed a new skirt to wear to the class (naturally) and a shower I attended on Sunday (shhh....I wore it two days in a row!), and so this half-circle skirt was made. And no, I didn't wear my green shoes. I wore orange. And at exactly 12:35, sounding slightly like a junkie needing one last fix, I promised myself that this really would be the last time I used bias binding instead of hemming. Next time, I'm moving on to hem tape, baby.

Works in Progress

Steve's off today, which means it's my 'work' day. They've all left me for some kind of summertime fun, so I'm alone in the house (no, it's alooooone in the house) to work. For Fiona's WIP (Flickr group here), this is the top of my To Do List:

1. Make these handbags (and a few more) for a wholesale order.

2. Gather the materials for tomorrow's workshop.

3. Play and eat and laugh at an oceanside picnic dinner with my babes.

Have a wonderful weekend!

a most lovely package

When Nina of The Whole Self told me she had some books she thought we might like, she was, um, slightly understated. My jaw completely dropped when I opened this package. Not sure how two books could be more perfectly 'us'. Wow.

The first book, a 1915 copy of Stories To Act. Simply gorgeous. And such lovely, simple stories of the classics, tales of woodland creatures and fairy tales. I have a thing for old 'school' books, but I rarely find drama books like this. Amazing. We will most certainly be acting some of these out soon.

And then, there's the book that Calvin is sleeping with right this very minute. Costumes for Nursery Tale Characters, by Jean Greenhowe (1976. A good year, I do say). He's been carrying this around non-stop today, flipping through and trying to make the tough decision between the friar, robin hood, and wee willie winkie. Tough call, I know. But I'm sure you'll be seeing one of those around soon. Very soon if he gets his wish.

And the last bit of this glorious package were these cards, by Nina. Such a great idea. Vintage ephemera sewn onto cardstock. So beautiful.

Thanks so much, Nina!!

Solstice Day

Ah, summer.

Happy Solstice to you!

to match the green shoes

Yup, I made this skirt so I'd have something else to wear with the green shoes. I love it almost as much as the shoes, but not quite. I really love those green shoes. The vintage fabric is one I found a few weeks ago thrifting. I didn't use a pattern per se, but I traced from another recently made 'favorite' skirt but made the flare a bit smaller, since a girl can only do so much twirling before she gets dizzy.

I know you'll ask for a tutorial. Trust me. You don't want a tutorial from me. My directions are so vague that it would amount to: "measure, trace, cut, sew". Not helpful.

By the way, has anyone noticed anything about most of my hemming? Anyone? Anything? Alright...I'll fess up. I'm SUPER lazy about handsewing. Don't like it one bit. Hence the rolled hem (thank you, serger), the rickrack, the bias tape (above), or whatever othe shortcut I can come up with to avoid handsewing. My dirty little secret is out. I cheat at hems.

still stenciling

I haven't shown much lately, but the stenciling around here hasn't stopped. Each time I see a new photo up on the Flickr group, I get inspired to do another round. I've found a few new stencil sites online, but have been drawing a few myself (the three above). Quite fun.

(Blatant self-advertising ahead. Sorry!)
If you're local (Portland, Maine, that is), I'll be hosting a Freezer Paper Stencil Workshop with Brandie at Edith & Edna this Saturday, June 24th from 10-1 pm. We'll have all the supplies set up, as well as many stencils for you to choose from if you don't have your own. Come on by to stencil some things for yourself, a friend, or for gifts. It will be good fun, I'm sure. To register, call (207.761.2800) or email Edith & Edna for more details and to reserve your spot.

a new book

I received this beautiful machind patchwork book in the mail from Li, who very generously sent me a copy she picked up while in Taiwan (how cool is that?). She's got a few scans of the great leaves in the book. And Lisa, who also has this book, posted a few of her favorite pictures from it a while back. There's so much lovely inspiration in here, I'll share a few of my favorites. Oh, and it's ISBN4-529-04182-4, by suzuko koseki. (And forgive the crudely scanned images. I do not love scanning.)

Gorgeous, no? But oh, can you imagine how much time that would take?

So so cute.

Loving the circles.There's a lot more besides bags, but those are what I was most drawn to. No surprise there.

Thanks so much for this inspiration, Li!!

gifting

There's been a slew (love that word) of birthdays and showers around here the past few weeks. Now that the parties are over, I can share the goods.

A kid-sized backpacked, filled with 'on the go' art materials. I've got a bit of this Munki Munki bike fabric left...I think I might need to start hoarding it, I love it so.

This little handbag (a twin to my Holly Go Lightly bag) is in transit to it's blogging recipient now. That's all I'm saying.

A baby blanket for a friend's shower. That goldfish print is so fun.

This bag, made from a vintage curtain (I guess that's pretty obvious) is now in the hands of my friend Brandie, who's paving the way to 30 for me by a few months. She says it's not so bad.

And last, a HUGE, gigantic tote bag for a wedding shower. Seriously huge, and seriously sturdy (have I mentioned the gigantic rolls of industrial strength canvas I bought while thrifting? The canvas that is sure to kill my sewing machine?). And no, the package inside was not included with the gift.

Hot on the heels of my post about not 'doing it all' this post kind of appears to say otherwise, no? But really, these were all made within the past month, not the past seven days. I assure you. And, by the way, thank you so very much for all your kind words about that post. I knew you'd get it.

Papas Day!

Calvin's card to Papa. Our plans and gifts for the day are centered around Steve's love of the river. So Calvin came up with a card of the Oompa Loompa's CHOCOLATE river. Yum.

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! Especially the ones that aid and abet the crafty mamas. Those are some extra special Papas, I tell you. ;)

Work in Progress

For the Friday Work in Progress (with a new Flickr group), here's my current work pile. These are all vintage curtains that are about to become handbags like this one for a wholesale order. I've still to choose linings for each, but the pile has started, and so the work will follow shortly. I love these 'curtain bags' as I've been calling them.

And here's another pile that I want to show you. (clicking on the photo will show you just how random this pile is.) This was directly behind me while I was taking the first photo. Steve often threatens to start a counter blog called "The Other Corners of My Home". (I think he should!) And while it's all in good fun, he does have a point. It may appear that all is glossy around here...the photos semi-polished with no sign of laundry and chipping paint; handmade clothing for the babes; and lots of finished crafting projects. I always assume you know that what you see here is just a part of my life. I choose to mostly blog about the good, the positive, the things and people that bring me joy. (And the hope is that it brings you some joy too). When I'm having a hard, terrible parenting day; when I'm not so proud of a parenting moment; when my house is completely trashed; when I'm tired and grouchy and covered in breastmilk and peanut butter...when all of these things are happening (as they often do), I find immense sanity in stopping from all the chaos to blog about the joyful things. A simple handbag. A new pair of shoes. A dress for my baby girl. It reminds me of what's beautiful, and of what's important to me.
But when I hear things like, "how do you do it all?," I worry that my focus on the good stuff is deceiving. That you really think I DO do it all. I assure you that is quite far from the truth. The things I 'let go' around here could fill it's own blog if I really wanted to talk about it. But I make very conscious choices in how I spend my time - and the things that I am not willing to let go of are what is most important to me. My family. Living a creative life. Trying to be mindful. Living with intention. Parenting gently. And so that's what you hear about. I worry sometimes that this might be forgotten, and oh, the very last thing in the world that I would ever want to do would be to put more guilt on another Mama. So. Please. Be easy on yourself, and know that this is just me sharing a bit of my life in my own attempt to keep it real.

Whew. Sorry to get so heavy and rambly on ya on a Friday afternoon. Have a good weekend, everyone.

for the rest of us

I'll be the first to admit that Adelaide is the recipient of most of the handmade clothing around here these days. Honestly, I can't resist the temptation of all the amazing vintage baby dress patterns I have.  But lest you worry that my other children are neglected in the handmade clothing department, I bring you photographic proof of other sewing. Pants for all (sorry, Steve, I don't think so...) were made this week, and are all being worn quite happily at "beach" length as we call it. Oh, and they're all 'traced' from favorite pants because I never can find a pants pattern I love that much. The boys pants are made from vintage shirting fabric--oh, so soft. And mine, the fabric was only used as this was the trial run for what I am hoping will become several pairs of pants that I wear everyday.

And the wacky single, headless on-the-move photos above? Well, sometimes posing for blog photos just isn't in the plan.

Sometimes this is as close as you get. (I assure you that giggling was the only coercion method attempted.)

Corners of my Home

(My apologies for the wonky photography today...those green walls do some strange things, I tell you.) This is a Corner of My Home, in our dining room. It's become our 'wall of trees'. The top piece is an old painting of a pear tree, below that a pencil drawing of a forest edge that Steve found for me antiquing this spring, on the left is my print by AshleyG (a closeup here); and on the bottom- at child's eye height- is the newest addition, arriving just this week:

Hope Springs Eternal, by Lisa. (Thankfully, she has some better photographs and a description of the process a bit here). This has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it over a year ago now. When I first saw it, I was just beginning to know Lisa outside of our blogs, and never could have imagined how close we would become, or that she would make the journey across the country for us to meet and visit. I'm truly grateful for all of that and for this latest act of her generosity. The message of this piece - (and it's five hearts on the tree -quite symbolic for my family) - rings so true in my heart about so very much- spring; hope; and renewal. Thank you, thank you dear Lisa for sharing your heart!

More Corners of My Home on Flickr.

**And, Wow!! Thank you, thank you for all the sweet words about Adelaide and her new dress yesterday. I read her all of your comments and hope it will convince her that yes, indeed, it's a fabulous dress that she should looove to wear. she's thinking about it.

a dress for the babe

Has enough time passed since I last posted Adelaide wearing something I made? Hmn...I hope so, because that's what I've got for you today. This dress, made with a vintage sheet, and embellished with trim from LesBonRibbon. I started with a vintage pattern, but ended up altering it quite a bit to get just the look I wanted - so much altering, in fact, that it doesn't really fit her. It's too long on the shoulders, and so it won't be quite right for the wedding next month I had it in mind for. But, I'm sure it will be *just right* by next summer.

Oh god. I could seriously lick every fold of her skin. Did I just say that?

Unfortunately this pretty much sums up how she feels about the dress. Get. This. Thing. Off. I guess we'll try again in a year.

Margery Niblock prints

"Reverie" woodcut, and "Song of Peace" linoleum block print, by Margery Niblock.

Knowing how much I would love her work, a friend recently introduced me to local artist Margery Niblock. (You can read a bit about her career here.) Her work is quite appealing to me, particularly the child oriented pieces-- they seem to so simply and beautifully capture an innocence of childhood that I know we all want for our children. A mother herself, Margery quite clearly was inspired by her son (I adore this piece The Drawlings of her napping artist child!), which I can certainly identify with.

It took me so long to decide on which prints to order--I love them all--but in the end chose these two above, and am so pleased with them. It's been a treat to look at all of this work, and to have a few exchanges with Margery herself. She's parting with many of her prints right now, through Ebay, and they're all quite lovely, and very reasonably priced. You can check them out here.

what we've been waiting for...

Today I think our begging for sun was heard.

Today was our first official 'beach day' of the season.

Today I am grateful for every salty fresh breath of air.

warm coffee is very very very important...

...which is why this french press coffee cozy made it's way to the top of my crafting list this weekend (in spite of all the other projects with deadlines). This has been on my mind to make one since I saw mav's in action last month, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it really does work to keep the coffee warm. That's a very very good thing. SO...here's what I did: I pieced a few of my favorite blue vintage kitchen-ey fabrics into two squares big enough to cover the press, quilted each of those to two layers of cotton batting, sewed those two pieces together, turned it right side out and then used a wide bias tape to 'finish' the bottom.

And of course, it needed a matching oven mitt (based on the Denyse Schmidt Quilts Too Hot To Handle Oven Mitt).

Rain, Rain, go away...

...we'd like to go outside to play.

projects in waiting

I get excited each time I see 'piles' on other crafty blogs. I love seeing the process of how an idea gets turned into a finished product, and the 'pile' -to me- is an important step in that process. My head gets bouncing with a zillion different ideas of things I want to make...but once an idea has turned into a pile, it has a much greater chance of actually being completed (and remembered. oh, if only I could remember some of those middle-of-the night 'fabulous' project ideas!). The piles serve as a visual to-do list, and a chance to try different combinations of notions and fabrics before committing. I love the piles.  Except when the piles start to take over the work table so that there's no room to work. Like right now:

I'm in a spell of mostly gifty (and clothing) projects, all with deadlines in the next two weeks or so. Clockwise (ish) from the top right: a vintage pattern dress for me, waiting for a zipper and something else to save it from it's frumpy fate; a kids backpack for a 3 year old's birthday with the Munki Munki pool fabric; another backpack with more munki munki for a 6 year old's 'art on the go' bag; a handbag awaiting handles for a special blogger; a french press cozy, greatly inspired by mav's, made by MeCozy (this is the project I'm most excited about on this table); a baby blanket with the goldfish Heather Ross fabric; a vintage dress pattern and sheet to be a dress for Adelaide's summer wedding attire; pink floral to become a skirt for me; and in the middle--shorts for the boys.

Slightly ambitious. A little insane. Now you all know. ;)

Thank you Fiona for the great inspiration and idea to do this weekly! What fun it will be sharing and seeing works in progress!

a good day thrifting

This past month, for the first time, I've started having an afternoon of childcare (thank you dear sister!). The intent wasn't exactly so that I could go thrifting, but inevitably...I do. And, oh, it's just soooo much easier to do alone (and the grocery store, and the bank, and a zillion other errands that I always did with three little ones). On this particular thrifting visit, they had just brought out a new bin of linens when I arrived, which I was politely hovering over. Until I saw two ladies in their 70's just about dive headfirst into that thing, digging and pulling and chatting away. And so naturally, I joined them.

We had a grand time there. Chatting. Digging. And sharing treasures. Of course the beauty of it was that we were looking for *quite* different things. They were loving the 'cute' cotton prints of the 80's, and I was loving the 'old time' prints (their words).

I let them do most of the talking, and I mostly smiled. I especially smiled to myself when I heard them discussing how they 'didn't have time to sew anymore'. Hmn. Not sure I get that.

They were smiling (laughing?) at what I put in my cart of course. Couldn't quite understand why I wanted all this OLD material (do you call it material or fabric?). Or gosh...someone's old, worn aprons? And linen tea towels?

I walked away from the linens section after saying my goodbyes and thank you's (they were helping me dig, afterall). I was quite pleased with the visit--the fabric and the company. And on my way to the register found these last few favorite jumping out at me. The tray is so perfect I can hardly stand it, and the white gloves? You can never have enough vintage white gloves around with a child like Calvin, I tell you. And the shoes. Oh, the shoes. I have this new obsession with 'vintage' shoes...these fab Hush Puppies have this great caramel swirl thing going on that makes me think of candy every time I look at my feet in them. That might be weird, but I love them.

pretty things

This lovely tee arrived this week from Bara. "All manner of pretty things" is certainly an accurate description of her shop, and now that the shirt has arrived I wonder how, exactly, I stopped myself at just this one? So many lovely things...beautiful paintings, tuffets (tuffets!), and my favorite - vintage treats packaged as the Magic Parcel. Thanks so very much, Erieann!

And on a completely unrelated note, I set up my own domain name and even figured out how to route it here (so impressed with myself), which means that www.soulemama.com will get you to this here blog lickety split (so will the old address...no need to change your bloglines or anything). Saving you just a few extra characters to type. I'm all about efficiency, you know. ;)

reconstructing for the babes

From a pair of Mama pajama pants, to matching striped pants for the baby cousins:

Adelaide and Autumn (6 weeks apart). I know I say this every time, but I get such a thrill out of making wee kid clothes out of old 'big' clothes. Such little waste feels so good. And I always feel so connected to the past, when of course this wasn't just fun but a necessity. The personal challenge of just how much I can do with ONE piece of discarded clothing is such fun (in this case: a headband for me, two pants for babes, and elastic and drawstring to be recycled into another project), and when little to nothing actually makes it into the 'trash' pile, I feel quite satisfied.

God, I could eat them both. I'm only slightly biased in my role as Mama and Auntie, but c'mon now. They're heavy on the cute. Especially when they crawl all over each other and try to use each other for support standing up. They're equally shakey.

saved

He saved it. Saved EVERYTHING off the trashed hard drive, and installed a brand new bigger drive. All in one days time. I love the computer doctor. It doesn't matter to me that the bill rivaled my fabric budget for the whole year (eek!). My computer is back, and with it--all my photos, files, and music. And even better than it was before. Ahh.... Lesson learned, and much gratitude to the doc. And thank YOU for all your suggestions and sympathy! I've still got lots of email and updates to wade through, so bear with me if it takes a bit longer than usual to hear back.

And stepping back a few more days, I really wanted to say thank you to everyone for your kind and heartfelt words about Calvin's letter, and your empathy in the challenges of talking to kids about war honestly and with heart. I so very much appreciated the support, and hearing others stories, etc. You'll notice in my "what we're reading" sidebar a few books we're reading on the subject, with more to come in the next couple of days. And I'll check back in soon about the letter writing, too.

On a lighter note, what exactly does one do without a computer for a day? Make leather pants, of course. Or, red pleather, to be precise. The length (or lack thereof) by the way, was entirely the wish of the designer (also the model) and not the seamstress. (And Mom, did you really wear this as a skirt once? Um, wow.)

stay tuned

so perhaps - just perhaps - it would have been a good idea to stop and listen when my computer has been telling me (for um, a month now. ahem.) that a "permanent hard drive error is about to occur". Perhaps I should have taken that as a sign to call someone for help. Or atleast as a sign to back up everything on the hard drive - you know, like 6 months worth of photographs for example (hey - I did buy the dvd's for burning. Just, um, didn't do anything with them yet), or my email address book and all that important jazz.

But you know. I didn't do that. Any of it. And so here I am in my local library using my 15 minutes of computer time (really? 15 minutes? are you kidding me?), with cell phone on standby in my sweaty palm waiting to hear from the Computer Doctor (yes, that's really his name) if anything, anything at all is irretreivable from the hard drive before we trash it and start anew. I feel slightly as though a member of my family is in for surgery, and we don't know if she's going to make it out, and even if she does, will she remember us? Okay, perhaps I'm being dramatic. But you know.

This keyboard sucks. And my time is up. Now, go back up your files. Now! And yes, it's okay to laugh at how ridiculous I was for not doing anything until it was too late, because that's all we're doing. Laughing. (and sweating).

(to be continued...sometime very soon, I do hope.)

writing a letter

I generally try to keep things fairly bright and positive around here (you know, the "let's talk about my new shoes" kind of chat). But this has been something that's been a big focus in my home and heart of late, and so I wanted to share just a wee bit of it here, sadness and all. It's part of my life. Prompted by Calvin, who has just learned what a gun is (thank you, Rolf), we've been having some pretty heartbreaking conversations.  Conversations of guns, of violence, and war and death. Hard, sad conversations to have with a child...and hard to find responses to the amazing questions he asks. Today we were talking about ways we can and do make change in our lives and in the world around us, and in particular, how we can make our voices heard. Calvin wrote the letter above immediately after our conversation and asked me to "send it to the people in charge of the war". Once it was ready to go to Senator Snowe, he asked, " when she gets this, will the wars stop?". Oh, my beautiful, beautiful child. I always tell my children the truth, but with all my heart I wanted so much to lie to him today.

road trip essentials

Forgive the sudden disapearance. I spent a day lingering in vacation mode, followed by a road trip to the city (that would be Boston), and then returned home to a looong outage from thunderstorms. Phew. But here I am, and ready to show you the essentials that I gathered for the day trip:

Why, new shoes and a handbag of course. Green shoes, that add to my mysteriously growing collection of green shoes. And the new handbag I whipped up in the midnight hours this week, using a vintage curtain panel that I adore (oddly, I walked around the thrift store with more of the same panels and ultimately put them back to keep just one. what?). The button closure, and pleats at the top of the bag are just the right amount of something to make it not feel like a tote, I think. I'm quite in love with my new shoe/bag treats. And they were the perfect addition for a day spent in the city with a dear friend and my dear baby girl. A little shopping at Anthropologie (my buying restraint was stellar, I tell you. but I did leave a trail of drool behind. Ah..), some city thrifting, some amazing Indian food (Namaskar in Davis Square), and a return home to two adorable snuggled-up-in-bed boys.  A very, very good day.

(for all you green shoe lovers asking me about the shoes, they're Born, and can be found here. They come in orange too. yum.)